1. Field of the Invention:
This invention relates generally to temporary hoistway assemblies which are removable and more particularly to hoistway assemblies which have left and right wing panels and which are portable and stackable.
2. Previous Art:
Temporary man lifts are used on construction sites for delivering men and material to a particular location. In order to build the steel concrete superstructure of buildings, men and material must be transported to one floor after the other. A temporary hoist is particularly useful for accomplishing this job. These man lifts must have hoistway door on each floor which include a door and preferably side panels.
A typical hoist assembly provides a door and occasionally, right and left wing panels to offer some protection from the moving man lift. The door is hingedly connected to the wing panels with one side opening, like a standard door. Studs are attached to the superstructure of each floor and the man lift assembly is attached to the studs. The door typically has a latch which can open only from the side of the hoist and not from the side of the superstructure. It would be quite unsafe to provide a latch on the superstructure side because a workman could inadvertently open the door and fall, severely injuring himself.
A temporary hoist assembly is either purchased or made on site and fixed to each floor of the superstructure as needed. In some large buildings there may be multiple man lifts and a hoist assembly is needed for each stop which is typically each floor.
Typical hoist assemblies are made from wood and are very heavy. The wooden hoist assembly may exceed 500 or more pounds with both a left and a right handed wing panel. It will be appreciated that transporting such heavy hoist assemblies from one site to another is difficult and expensive. The alternative of making new hoist assemblies for each site is equally unattractive, since that takes time and energy away from the building project itself.
Additionally when hoist assemblies are moved from site to site, they are quite cumbersome. Loading and unloading the wooden hoist assemblies is made even more difficult since the wood tends to be slippery and the door and side panels slide with respect to one another making transport and loading and unloading a time consuming and even hazardous operation.
After the hoist assembly is brought to a site it must be unloaded and assembled. Typically, a hoist assembly with wing panels has different right and left wing panels so that each panel may lift and rotate properly with relation to the door panel. The workman must sort the panels of the assemblies into doors, left panels and right panels. After sorting the doors and panels, the proper nuts and bolts must be found as well as the correct hinge assemblies. After finding the proper assembly equipment, the workman can then transport this heavy hoist assembly to the floor desired and start the assembly operation.
What is needed is a lighter weight hoist assembly that is easy to transport and assemble and which is easy to remove and stack for storage and transport.